Stuck in My Own Family Tree

What's next from Patricia Webster Stewart? Listen to this podcast to find out!

Who doesn't love a trip to Home Depot? But every day? Jack tells us about his retirement addiction as one of those "doers who get things done."

Anyone who works in an industrial setting knows about the "lockout/tagout protocol." Jack found out the hard way how important it is to follow this procedure

One of Jack's favorite hobbies was to fly model airplanes. In this story, he recounts his trip to Detroit at age 15 to fly in a national competition.

Going to visit Grandma was not one of Jack's favorite pastimes. Listen as he tells us about visiting Grandma in this week's episode

Jack tells us in his own words why his first swimming lesson turned out to be his last.

In this podcast, Pat tells how little Jackie had to go to the hospital because his tummy hurt. Find out why in this episode.

"Grandchildren proved to be an eager audience for old slides. "Is that really my Mom? She sure looks goofy!" was a frequent comment."

"If you ever run for elected office, be sure and tell me so I don't vote for you. My vote would ensure your loss!"

"My younger sister Helen made a shrine to James Dean in her home. Whenever Jack and I visited, we slept with James looking on as his presence dominated the guest room."

"The Colonel had consistently won the prize for the first tomato of the season. That year his plants produced the first tomato on June 8. He died several weeks later."

"Pat was vehemently opposed to buying sugared cereal or the newest fad in kids' toys. But listen to how that changed when she had grandchildren."

"I put clippings from the local newspaper, the best school papers, and school pictures into each box."

"Jack and I were not thinking of retirement in 1995 when it was forced upon us. We had no burning desire for sleeping late, golf and bridge, or world travel."

"Finding Michele and getting to know her family was an important milestone in Helen's life."

"The contest was to find the longest toe. Everyone with Webster blood shed a shoe and presented his or her longest toe."

Good Catholics don't throw away old palm branches. But what would the family do with them when they packed up the house to move to a foreign country?

Tom asked, "Dad, would you go with the guitar group from church to see Three Dog Night?" Little did he know how that night would turn out!

"When Andy and Melanie were students at Clemson University, the school showed The Graduate at the end of every school year. “We saw it every year. I guess we saw it six or seven times,” said Melanie. “Andy wouldn’t think of missing it."

"How will I know I'm in labor?" I asked. "Oh, don't worry, you'll know," they said. Find out how that worked out for Pat's cousin Ruth, as told to Pat.

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Jack Stewart takes the mic this week to wish our listeners a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday season!

"What he taught me haunts me daily as I struggle with the effects of rheumatoid arthritis. Dad suffered with RA in the 1960s when aspirin and cortisone were the only medications available."

"I loved my little green chick. I called him Baby. He would follow me around. I wonder whatever happened to those chickens."

"Watch where you bite, those are Grandma Webster's cookies," said my mother. Grandma Webster's saucer-shaped cookies had booby traps in them, black walnut shells.

For 14 months I was an only child, the alpha female. Then my kid sister Mary Ann came into my life.. Old photos show us playing together, sharing a birthday cake in the yard, romping in the snow in the winter, playing with the garden hose in the summer.

"Mom canned the fruit and made pies and jams from the cherries. She called them "pie cherries." I called them sour cherries."

"Why are you crying, all three of you?" she asked. Helen said, "Mom and Dad are having dinner and won't let us come in to eat." Mary Ann and I gasped, and I thought, I will get Helen for doing this."

"With her house in the hands of strangers, her husband without a job, and the family now on its way to Germany, Stephanie made up her mind. "We will not give up. We will find help any way we can."

"Something's coming out of the car, Aunt Louise!" I saw flames coming out from where the radio was. I didn't think of anything except getting out of there.

I met my cousin, Jimmy Keane, only once. When I saw him in uniform, I ran to my mother and said, "Uncle Sam is at the front door."

Aunt Cecilia was a war bride in 1943. They didn't have much money, so they stayed with Tom's brother's family on their honeymoon. They found nine other people in the house.

"Aunt Marie helped win WWII. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor she worked on an assembly line, manufacturing airplanes."

"Grossmutter's birthplace was an obscure part of the world. Residents in this area considered themselves to be Bohemian. Did she have a touch of gypsy in her?"

"My daughter-in-law gave me a pillow with this message on it: 'My family tree is full of nuts.' That sums up what I have to say in this book. They may be nuts, but they are my nuts!"